OK, I’m trying out the Windows Live Service that’s comes with Windows 8 to see how well it works when I want to make a blog post. In fact I’m finding many interesting software choices that I haven’t tried yet. Since my chores are done for the night and I’ll be going to bed soon, I’ll think I’ll spend some time testing the waters.
Well, we’re at the end of another year. There was the good, the bad and the horribly ugly but I can’t complain. I have a job that I love and although funds are low, it’s only a matter of time before the year-end bonuses and my tax refund makes it all better.
I’ve updated my website a bit ( www.authorcjblack.com) and have placed an excerpt of Briars and Bones. It’s also here on Black Satin but perhaps someone will want to have a look at it again? I’ll also be placing it on my Illusion of Night FB page: www.facebook.com/IllusionOfNightSeries as well as tweaking my About Me page a bit.
Now in case you haven’t seen, my readers, I invited anyone who is interested to post their queries on my Facebook Page ( www.facebook.com/authorcjblack ) and I was posting my own to be critiqued by anyone interested. Well I’m extending the invitation here at Black Satin. Send my your query letters and I’ll be happy to post them. Now I can’t guarantee you’ll get a critique here but who knows? Like my mom always says, nothing beats a failure but a try. I’ve posted my query letter on my FB page but here is the updated version, after a first critique:
Query for Tinderbox
Epic Fantasy/Romance complete at 95K words.
I would like to submit for your consideration my work of fantasy/romance, Tinderbox which takes its inspiration from The Tinderbox by Hans Christian Andersen. It is complete at 95,000 words. Tinderbox is the first of a series, Tales of the Broken Lands, with the next novel, Wild Deeds already in outline form.
The Broken Lands. A place outside of our known world, where the characters of myth and fairy-tales exist. Among them is Isbet, a witch skilled in her art. The only family she ever knew is murdered, the old witch’s prized possession, stolen – the Tinderbox. A common man has used it to seize a throne. The same man who conquered Prince Bram Greyward’s land and made him his unwilling heir. A chance encounter gives Isbet the opportunity she needs to ingratiate herself into the king’s house where Bram’s bravery and kindness impresses her. However Bram is caught in the aura of darkness surrounding the king and fearful of the power of the talisman.
When Isbet and Bram are summoned to an underground kingdom, they find that an ancient source of magic, long dormant, is being brought to dangerous life by beings unnatural and it threatens to destroy the land. Isbet and Bram have been pulled into a battle not their own and struggle to locate the source of the darkness.
Under the pseudonym of C.J. Black I have published two fantasy erotic e-novels with Liquid Silver Books as well as several short stories and novellas with various online small-presses.
If you feel you may be interested in reviewing Tinderbox for possible representation, please contact me at your earliest convenience. Thank you.
And I’m OK, despite what day this is. I actually hadn’t thought of it at first. I can’t say whether or not I’ve come to terms with it but I’m not forlorn like I usually am this time of year.
And as for my plans for 2014? I don’t do the resolution thing because as I’ve said on the AWWC, life has a way of changing things. But I’m determined to either get an agent for Tinderbox or sent it straight to the publishers. Also finish Briars and Bones and Wrapt In Ashes. I also have that science-fiction story idea I want to submit for a graphic novel. So I guess we can only see.
I’ll catch you all on the Eve
Peace~
CJ
Author WA Simpson 